Fic: An Education in Sottish Culture 1/2, Billy/Orlando
Title: An Education in Scottish Culture 1/2
Author: strongplacebo
Pairing: Billy/Orlando
Rating: PG
Author’s Notes: Written for lotrips_fqf. I do not speak Danish, German or French, so I apologise in advance for (m)any errors.
Request: Billy/Orlando: Maybe a series of group-hanging out stories that focuses on these two getting closer? Sort of a first time/realization type fic. Crazy fellowship antics also encouraged. [Request by irish_cocktail]
“Bullshit, he does not!”
“I swear to God, man,” Orlando insisted, leaning forward and planting his elbow resolutely in a puddle of beer. The not-cold damp spread slowly up his arm as Dom leant across Billy to swipe his fingers through the splashes and stick them in his mouth.
“One of the wardrobe girls was fitting him for his sword,” A cheer went up around the table, “and she was simpering about his name and he goes, right, listen to this, he goes,”
Orlando straightened up and pulled his chin into his neck. Looking imposingly around the table, he began in a deep and impressively American accent. “It’s…Danish…my father was…Danish. That’s why…I speak it…”
Orlando calmly ignored Billy’s snort, since the man clearly didn’t recognise a good impression when he saw one.
“Bullshit!” Elijah declared again. “No one speaks Danish outside of Daneland!”
Orlando frowned (Americans knew nothing about Europe, honestly) and opened his mouth to say something when the Danish speaker in question appeared behind Billy (Orlando smirked when Billy jumped a little. That’d teach him to mock other people’s impersonations).
“My father taught me,” Viggo said, sitting and stroking the condensation off his glass, “so I could form bonds with my relatives…in Denmark.” He said this word pointedly, looking at Elijah.
“Denmark?” Elijah said, before Dom shook his head disbelievingly and Billy jumped in.
“Elijah, stop, stop now, while you still look merely drunk and not stupid.”
Elijah glared at him and flicked the ash off his cigarette defiantly in his direction.
“I speak German,” Dom said.
“Do you, Dom?” Billy asked.
“Say something in Danish for us,” Orlando pleaded.
“Very well,” Dom added.
“Hej, jeg hedder Viggo, det var hyggeligt at mødes. Jeg indtale Dansk,” Viggo rattled off.
“Wow,” Elijah breathed.
“I was born in Germany,” Dom explained.
“Were you, Dom?” Billy asked politely.
“What does that mean?” Elijah demanded of Viggo.
“I just said, ‘Hi, my name’s Viggo,” Viggo quirked his mouth and shrugged.
“What did you say after that?” Elijah continued.
“He said, ‘yo’ momma’, Elijah,” Orlando crowed.
“Ich habe in Berlin gerborgen,” Dom mentioned.
“Is that right, Dom?” Billy ducked Elijah’s flying peanuts.
“Dom, your German is rubbish,” Orlando attested, plucking peanuts from his clothes and throwing them back.
“It is not!” Dom protested.
“Dom. You can’t say anything I can’t say having studied German O-level fifteen years ago,” Billy pointed out.
“Do you want more than that?” Dom enquired.
“I speak a little Spanish,” Elijah put in.
“O-level doesn’t teach you anything useful in a foreign language,” Billy said.
“I took French GCSE,” Orlando interjected.
“¿Donde aprendiste castellaño?” Viggo leaned in to Elijah.
“You speak Spanish too?” Billy was surprised.
“J'ai des cheveux et des yeux bruns,” Orlando demonstrated.
“¿Conocés vos algún país sudamericano?” Viggo went on.
“What’s he saying?” Billy nudged Elijah with his foot.
“I don’t know. I only understand about half of it.” Elijah was staring in horror at Viggo.
“J'habite avec mon mère et mon soeur,” Orlando added.
“Maybe he’s speaking Portugese,” Dom suggested.
“I’m speaking Spanish!” Viggo laughed.
“I’m speaking French,” Orlando agreed.
“Ich bin sprechend Deutsch,” Dom said.
“How come you speak Spanish as well?” Elijah wanted to know.
“I lived in Argentina until I was twelve,” Viggo explained.
“I lived in Germany until I was twelve!” Dom exclaimed.
“So why does he speak Spanish better than you speak German?” Orlando snorted.
“I speak German very well!” Dom protested.
“Spanish, Danish and Elvish, all better than you,” Billy said.
“Am besten,” Dom said pointedly.
“Hey Viggo? Yo’ momma!”
Viggo’s head snapped round. “Who said that?”
“Meep,” said Elijah, and pushed back his chair. Dom took the opportunity presented by Viggo launching after him to pour half of both Viggo’s and Elijah’s drinks into his own glass (probably a mistake, Orlando thought, given that Elijah was drinking tequila and Viggo was drinking whiskey).
“Arm yourself, lad,” Billy told Orlando, reaching over to Elijah’s stack of peanuts. Orlando scooped a few from Billy’s hand while Billy started launching them at Viggo. Well, Viggo was the new boy, Orlando thought, and flung his handful too.
*
“Don’t worry, honey, it’ll be fine.”
Orlando flicked his gaze up to the reflection of Julie’s smiling, reassuring face. He looked back at the ominous black razor in her hand. He did not feel reassured.
“You are one crazy mofo,” Elijah told him from the side, where the hobbits had gathered in “support” (read: to mock mercilessly).
“He’s going to look even crazier once Julie’s done with him.”
“Be quiet, Dominic,” Julie scolded. “I’m going to be as gentle as I can.”
Orlando watched Dom and Elijah cackle behind him, clutching each other amid shrieks of “Be gentle with me!” He swallowed and looked back at Julie.
“Ready?” she asked. The door slammed open, making Orlando, who was already feeling quite anxious enough, thankyouverymuch, jump a couple of inches off the seat. Billy charged in.
“Did I miss it?” he panted.
“Just in time, Billy-boy,” Dom said. “Julie’s about to fire it up.”
Julie caught Orlando’s eye as Billy settled beside Elijah. He nodded once and Julie flipped the switch. The humming of the razor was immediately drowned out by cheers from the gallery. Orlando swallowed. This was it. He was about to loose his crowning glory, the mop of curls his aunt, his grandma and his mum said made him look like an angel; soon his curls would be gracing the inside of the dustbin. No longer would he be able to shake water drops from it onto sleeping sunbathers at the beach, no longer would he be able to flick it back casually from his face when catching someone’s eye, no longer would he be able to run his-
The razor made contact just above his left ear. Orlando tightened his fingers on the arm of the chair. A flash of light came from the hobbits, and Orlando looked over to see Billy winding on a disposable camera, beaming happily.
“We have to catch every moment of this,” he explained. “To show the grandkids when you were a punk rocker.”
“I must have been crazy to do this. I can’t believe I thought this would be a good idea,” Orlando babbled. Maybe he could stop now, only a fraction of his head had been shaved, that would grow back soon, right? “Why on earth did I agree to this?”
“I think it was because you were trying to impress a certain she-elf,” Elijah pointed out.
“Crazy,” Orlando said again. Billy stood up and walked closer.
“I want to get a picture from this angle,” he declared. “You can really see the fear.”
“This isn’t fear,” Orlando protested. “I’ll show you fear.”
Dom and Elijah made scared noises, lessened quite dramatically by the howls of laughter.
Julie brushed off some of the slumps of hair still clinging to his shoulder, before moving to the other side. Orlando looked up at Billy, pleading with him.
“Billy. My whole head is vibrating.”
Billy reached out and ran his hand over the newly-shorn side of Orlando’s scalp. His fingertips were rough against the softness of suddenly bare skin. He lifted the camera to his eye.
“Smile, Orlando.”
*
Orlando knew he couldn’t beat Elijah at video games. He knew this because a few weeks into filming, one of the lights on the Council of Elrond set broke and they were given a “fifteen minute break, guys” which everyone knew would last at least an hour. Elijah had bounded up and invited everyone back to his trailer for a game of NASCAR racing. After mocking him for being “such a fucking teenager, Lij” they realised there was nothing better to do and trailed after him. Elijah systematically kicked all their collective arses, even when he gave them a fifteen second head start, at which point he was informed that he needed to get laid and was forbidden from playing. He had sulked in the corner while Dom and Billy (sharing a controller) had thoroughly routed Orlando. No one could figure out how it had happened until it transpired that Orlando had been looking at the wrong car.
Nonetheless, when Orlando arrived at Elijah’s to find him playing video games (“By yourself, Lij? You really need to get fucking laid.”), he had done what he was told, grabbed a controller and shut the fuck up. Because the thing was, Orlando forgot that he could never beat Elijah at video games. Because it had been a while since they’d last played, and Orlando truly believed that in the interim, Elijah had got much, much worse at gaming while he, Orlando, had developed heretofore unseen skills. Of course, none of this was true, since Elijah had obviously been practising (on his own, loser) and Orlando had not touched a game set for three weeks.
Which was why he was perched on the edge of Elijah’s sofa, leaning himself and his controller to the left (kneeing Elijah, who was sat on the floor, in the head), while his car spun wildly to the right, when Billy came through the door.
“Orlando, you fucker, quit kneeing me in the head! I’m still going to kick your ass!” Elijah growled, taking one hand off his controller to shove at Orlando’s leg. Irritatingly enough, his car did not immediately hurtle head first into the nearest wall, flip upside down and burst into flames. It just slowed down a bit.
“Fucking cars,” Orlando said, dropping the controller decisively on Elijah’s head and leaning back. Billy perched on the arm of the sofa.
“Least it’s not in flames this time,” he said diplomatically.
“Hey, Billy,” Elijah greeted, without looking up. “Dom not with you?”
Billy glared at the back of Elijah’s head then, when this provoked no reaction, switched his gaze to Orlando. “Do we look like we’re joined at the bloody hip?”
Orlando studied Billy’s hip. Red t-shirt stripe, white t-shirt stripe, hem, jeans. No Dom. “Not right now. Where is he?”
Billy glared at Orlando. “I don’t know! I did invite him ‘round for a few beers,” Billy reached into his pocket, ignoring Elijah’s protestation of “it’s my flat, you fuckers!” and withdrew his mobile, “because I found some beer from home.”
Orlando pulled the bag open at the top. Guinness. “Billy, you are officially my favourite person in this room.”
“Hey!” Elijah protested.
“As it should be,” Bill beamed, and Orlando smiled back. Orlando sometimes (sometimes!) thought that Billy’s smile rather proved the phrase “smile and the world smiles with you” but he’d never told him, because he was not as dumb as he was pretty, despite frequent contentions to the contrary, and he knew that if he said anything like that, the hobbits (including Billy) would immediately start talking about how lovely it was that a nice girl like Orlando had finally settled down, and then they would argue about which style of wedding dress he would look best in. So he resorted to smiling back when Billy smiled at him.
“Fantastic,” Orlando beamed. Billy picked up his phone and fiddled.
“Of course, I told Dom and this is what he replied.” Billy handed the phone to Orlando, who picked it up and read, ‘is it hienken’. He snorted and tossed the phone back to Billy.
“Exactly,” said Billy, putting it back in his pocket. “Which is why he was uninvited.”
“I never get what’s so great about this beer,” Elijah said, dropping his game controller onto the carpet as his car sailed over the finish line. He pushed himself up onto the sofa beside Orlando.
“Elijah,” Billy began. “Guinness is the greatest beer in the world. Everyone knows it.”
Elijah frowned. “I like Speights,” he offered. Billy closed his eyes at this mortal offence.
“Just for that,” Billy declared, “you can’t have any of my super-special, highly expensive, envy-of-every-right-thinking-man-in-New-Zealand Guinness.”
Orlando nodded emphatically throughout this diatribe, then turned to Billy. “Did you just say super?”
Billy pointed a probably-meant-to-be-warning finger at him. “You watch it, Elf-boy, or you’ll be drinking Speights with Lijah.”
Orlando held up both hands in protest. “No, please Billy, please, anything but that!”
“Oi!” Elijah grunted, but the sound was muffled by the cigarette dangling out of his mouth.
“Hey,” said Billy, “you can’t smoke while we’re in here. That’s just rude.”
“It’s my flat!” Elijah insisted, rather monotonously Orlando thought.
“I don’t care,” Billy declared. “I brought the beer, which you’re not allowed any of, “ (Elijah squeaked), “and we’re guests. Besides, if you smoke up in here, poor Orli might get sick, mightn’t you, Orli?” Billy nudged his knee into Orlando’s arm and Orlando coughed hurriedly.
“Oh, yes, dreadful what smoke does to me.” He coughed pathetically a couple more times.
“So take your Speights and your cigarettes outside, Elijah,” Billy concluded. Orlando grinned on as Elijah gathered his packet and lighter and a can of beer from behind the sofa, grumbling all the while. Billy handed Orlando a Guinness while Elijah juggled everything in his hands as he tried to slide open the French window. Holding the beer can up triumphantly, he turned to yell, “Pride of the South!” back inside, sliding the door into place just as Billy flicked a lid at him. Orlando could hear Elijah cackling from behind the glass as he sat back.
“Budge over,” Billy said, nudging him again. Orlando shifted a half-hearted couple of inches to the left.
“More, you tosser,” Billy complained, “I want to sit.”
“So you move,” Orlando groused, but he slithered over a fraction more. Enough for Billy apparently, who slid only somewhat gracefully off his perch on the arm and ended up squashed at an angle between Orlando and the sofa. Orlando looked down, amused, at the top of Billy’s head as Billy squirmed and yelped against his side.
“Is that better?” he asked, feigning concern.
“Don’t get smart with me, or I’ll drink all the beer myself.”
Orlando snorted disbelievingly, but shifted around until they were both in more comfortable positions (ones that didn’t involve Billy sitting practically in Orlando’s lap).
“What possessed you to play computer games with Elijah?” Billy asked eventually, dropping the bottle opener on the floor next to the bag.
“I thought it was a good idea.” Orlando looked back at the screen and mourned the demise of his favourite blue car. He always played the blue car, even though Dom said Elijah should have it to bring out the colour of his eyes, because Orlando’s favourite colour was blue and, like Billy said, the car did match his contacts.
“Like you think bungee jumping is a good idea?” Billy’s tone suggested exactly what he thought of bungee jumping. He’d delivered that opinion very firmly and decisively when Orlando and Dom had been plotting to do the jump. Orlando seemed to recall the exact words were “no fucking way, you crazy fucking bastards, and stop talking to me about it while I’m drinking or I’ll throw up on you”.
Orlando brightened up as he thought about plunging headfirst towards a shallow stream of water. The rush was amazing, like falling out of a window, but without the all-consuming fear brought on by not being attached to anything.
“You should come with us next time, Bills!” he said enthusiastically, because you don’t get anywhere if you’re not willing to proceed despite terrible odds, such as Billy vomiting his beer onto your new jeans, the ones with the rips in the knees.
“You are not getting me to jump off a bloody bridge,” Billy snorted. “I’ve managed not to jump of any so far and I’ll be perfectly happy if I never do.”
No bungee jumping then. Orlando racked his brains to think of something Billy would be up for. “How about surfing in a storm?”
Billy looked at him, bottle raised halfway to his lips. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, man, it’d be fantastic! The wind, the waves, man they’d be freaking awesome! Big as an Orc!”
“You’d bail every time,” Billy declared, quite unfairly and quite incorrectly. “I’m a way better surfer than you.”
This was only slightly true, and Billy had cheated anyway, since they’d only found out a month after they started surfing that Billy’s balance was helped by many years of Jeet Kune Do training. Orlando ignored the reminder.
“So will you come?”
“Will I come into an enormous electrical conductor in the middle of a high powered storm, thereby risking my life, with a complete nutter in a mohican?” Billy summarised.
Orlando shrugged. When you put it that way…
Billy took another gulp of beer as Elijah pushed the door back open. “Sure, why not?”
*
“Orlando, that is the most amazing shirt I have ever seen.”
Orlando grinned down at his shirt, then grinned up at Billy. “I know, man! They had it in black and I thought, well, I like it a lot, so I’ll probably wear it, like, a lot, right, so I just went ahead and got it in red as well.”
Billy blinked. “You mean there’s another of those monstrosities in your wardrobe?”
Orlando peered at Billy. It was possible, just possible, that what with the lights flashing and the music thumping, he had misinterpreted Billy’s tone before. He was usually pretty good at judging when Billy was being less than earnest. He squinted through the flashing lights at Billy’s face. Flash. Eyebrows raised. Flash. Eyes widened. Flash. Nose wrinkled. Flash. Upper lip curved. Flash. Yep, Billy was being insincere.
“What’s wrong with this shirt?” Orlando demanded.
“It’s the ugliest shirt in the world,” Billy declared.
“It is not! What’s so ugly about it?”
“It’s striped,” Billy pointed out, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world to say, when Orlando had worn striped shirts before with no (or minimal) complaints and he knew beyond a doubt that Billy had striped shirts of his own.
“Stripes do not make it the ugliest shirt in the world.”
“You’re right,” Billy allowed, “The stripes don’t. It’s the ruffles.”
Orlando looked down at his shirt. He placed his thumb and forefinger at the collar, where the ruffles began, and traced them down over the waves. He liked the feeling of the curving hemline under his skin.
“They make me look debonair.”
“They make you look like a ponce,” Dom announced, crashing into the table and slopping drinks all over it, while Billy nodded his agreement.
“Shut up!” Orlando cried, pointing his finger at Dom. “Anyway, your t-shirt has dots on it!”
“Dots are cool,” Dom countered.
“They make you look like a leopard,” Orlando told him, which wasn’t strictly true, because Dom’s dots were concentrated in the centre of his chest. Also they were pink.
“Ah,” Billy sounded like he was beginning to see the light. Orlando’s light. “You mean it’s better to look like an insult to zebras everywhere?”
“Seriously, Orlando,” Dom cut him off before he could protest that if he looked like any stripy animal, he looked like a tiger, as evidenced by his already-bared teeth, “You need some help. Luckily, Billy and I are ready and slightly willing.”
Billy nodded. “Tomorrow, Orlando, we shall find you a dress sense.”
Orlando snorted. It probably wouldn’t be too bad. “Alright. But you tossers are buying.”
The next day found Orlando, who was nursing a headache the size of the south island, hiding behind his favourite pair of rose-coloured glasses from the ruthless outfitting of his new fashion team (which actually consisted of just Billy, Dom having begged off with the claim that he would never have been drunk enough to agree to take on such a hopeless case as Orlando). Billy was flipping through racks and racks of the most boring shirts known to man. Orlando stifled a yawn behind his hand.
“Don’t you yawn at me, young man,” Billy scolded.
“These are all boring, Billy,” Orlando complained.
“I think boring is what you need right now.”
Orlando shifted moodily and contemplated the quickest exit route. He hummed ‘The Great Escape’ under his breath.
“Stop plotting your getaway,” Billy warned him.
“I can’t help it, man, I’m going out of my mind. Can we at least go to a shop I like?”
“Okay,” Billy conceded, “but only because these shirts are rubbish.”
Orlando was filled with a sense of smugness as he led Billy out of the shop and into the little side street where the charity shops were homed.
“You shop here, Orlando?” Billy appeared to be shocked, which ridiculously implied that Billy had never been into a charity shop in his life.
“What’s so weird about that?” Orlando demanded. “I’m not going to pay vast amounts of money for clothes that fall apart soon as look at them. Here you pay peanuts for clothes you know are hard-wearing because they’ve already been worn by someone else for long enough for that someone to get fed up of them.”
Billy’s eyes were glazed. Clearly he was bowled over by Orlando’s impressive logic. “Come on,” he said, dragging Billy by the elbow in to the nearest Marie Curie Cancer Care.
Billy seemed to recover a bit inside, at least enough to mutter under his breath that some of Orlando’s fashion choices were indeed explained by the fact that they’d already been rejected by another, sane person. Orlando magnanimously chose not to reply to that remark and continued flipping through the men’s rack. He’d accidentally looked through the women’s rack once and did find a nice, bold-patterned floral shirt, but the old lady in the shop had looked at him weirdly when he went to try it on, so he had slunk out of there blushing without buying the damn thing.
Orlando was furtively sneaking glances over to the women’s rack to see if the shirt was still there when Billy went still beside him. He pulled his attention back.
“Found something?”
Billy reached into the row of shirts and pulled one out. Orlando looked at it, then at Billy’s face. Billy was in raptures.
“It’s probably too small for me,” he said carefully, “but why don’t you try it on?”
Billy looked up at Orlando, clutching the shirt to his chest. “You think so?”
“Yeah, it’d suit you,” Orlando encouraged, gesturing to the dressing room (or curtain across the corner of the shop in this case).
Billy looked longingly over at the corner, then back at Orlando. “But we’re supposed to be finding things for you,” he said, and Orlando almost grinned at the look on his face. Instead, he reached into the clothes rack and pulled out a white embroidered shirt.
“I was about to try this one on anyway. Why don’t we try them on together?”
Billy was over there like a shot. There was only one dressing room, but it was large enough to encompass the girth of the usual clientele, so Billy and Orlando fitted in together easily, ignoring the slightly horrified look of the lady behind the counter. Orlando turned away from Billy as he twisted his t-shirt of his head. He could feel the material of Billy’s chosen shirt brush up his back as Billy pulled it on. He finished buttoning his own shirt and tugged a couple of times on the sleeves. With the dogged determination only found in inanimate objects, they slid resolutely back up.
“Mine’s a little small,” he said. “Maybe I’ll get it for Dom though, he might like it.”
Orlando turned and promptly realised Billy hadn’t been paying the slightest bit of attention to him. Billy was gazing happily into the tiny mirror. Sometimes he would smooth his hands over the hem of the shirt, sometimes he would twist slightly, but never too far in case he lost sight of the shirt, and always he smiled soppily as if he’d never known true love until this moment. Orlando broke into a smile at the sight.
“Well?” Billy asked, never breaking eye contact with his reflection, “What do you think?”
Orlando looked over Billy’s shoulder at the shirt. It was covered in broad vertical stripes of red and blue-grey with wide double-cuffs. Two pockets had been cut from the same material and placed diagonally over the breast on either side of a wide section of horizontal stripes where the shirt buttoned. It was the ugliest shirt Orlando had ever seen. He looked at Billy and beamed.
“I love it.”
*
“I have sand in my arse crack.”
Orlando thought long and hard about how to respond to that. He cocked his head to the left. He scratched his ear. He huffed out a sigh. Eventually, he replied, “I don’t really care.”
“I know you don’t,” Billy agreed. “I just thought I’d let you know. In the interests of full disclosure.”
Orlando didn’t answer, but stared out to sea.
“I thought wearing jeans would curtail the effect,” Billy continued. “But it seems to have snuck in over the top.”
“Sand is tricksy like that,” Orlando agreed.
“It doesn’t seem to be affecting you like that. How is that fair?”
Orlando wriggled his toes in the warm sand. The hot scratchy substance rubbed against the sensitive skin where his sandals had been chafing and lodged resolutely and determinedly in between the littler toes, to be found and brushed out a week later onto Elijah’s couch. “I do have sand in my knickers. But I’m not squirming about like you so it doesn’t bother me as much.”
“I can’t stop moving.” Billy fidgeted again. Orlando lay back and the sand in his pants shifted uncomfortably and settled.
“I knew you liked it, kinky hobbit. You love the feeling of rough sand rubbing up against your arsehole. I bet you shove handfuls of the stuff down your knickers every night.” Orlando closed his eyes against the brightness of the light, and as such, missed Billy scooping up a double handful of sand and dropping it right in the middle of Orlando’s chest. Orlando spluttered, spitting out stray grains of sand which had blown, jumped and been deliberately shaken into his mouth. He shielded his eyes and stared up at Billy’s unrepentant face.
“Oh, that’s it,” he growled, and leapt at Billy, not a paltry feat, given that he had previously been lying prone on his back. The move actually consisted of Orlando rolling onto his side and propelling his body towards Billy’s by means of a series of full body flops. Billy, having declined to get to his feet, was shuffling sideways on his elbows and feet, bum hanging down and dragging in the sand.
“Gnargh!” Billy said eloquently, as Orlando managed to fling his arms around Billy’s waist and drag Billy towards him. Billy flailed and thrashed and writhed until, somehow, Orlando found himself squashed beneath a struggling hobbit, which was not exactly where he had planned to be. Keeping his grip tight around Billy’s waist, he planted his feet in the sand (which didn’t work very well, due to the slippery nature of sand) and pushed up, twisting his hips and torso until they were both on their sides and Orlando could hook a leg over Billy’s to stop them kicking.
“And the Elf wins again, to no one’s very great surprise!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “What do you say to that, Mr. Boyd?”
“I have sand in my eye,” Billy informed him, “and it hurts quite a lot.”
“This is why hobbits never win any wars,” Orlando explained to him. “Do you think an Elf would stop fighting just because of a bit of sand in his eye?” He released his legs from around Billy’s thighs and rolled him over so they were facing each other.
“Hobbits don’t get into wars,” Billy told him, rubbing his fist into his eye like a baby waking up. “They’re peaceful creatures, unlike the brutish Elves.”
Orlando tugged Billy’s hand away from his eye and pulled the lower lid down. Billy’s eyeball rolled up and his top lid flickered a couple of times. Orlando peered closer.
“Elves are not brutish,” he said distractedly. “They have grace and wisdom. There’s nothing in there, you big baby.”
Billy blinked a couple more times. “Thanks.”
Orlando smiled down at him. There was sand clinging to his cheek. Orlando brushed it away and leant down. He pressed his lips briefly against Billy’s.
“Don’t worry. The graceful and wise Elf will protect the little hobbit from dangerous sand.”
Billy smirked up at him. “I’m not a bloody damsel in distress,” he protested.
Orlando grinned and kissed him again, before rolling back over onto his back. “Then why do you always wear a skirt?”
Part Two
Author: strongplacebo
Pairing: Billy/Orlando
Rating: PG
Author’s Notes: Written for lotrips_fqf. I do not speak Danish, German or French, so I apologise in advance for (m)any errors.
Request: Billy/Orlando: Maybe a series of group-hanging out stories that focuses on these two getting closer? Sort of a first time/realization type fic. Crazy fellowship antics also encouraged. [Request by irish_cocktail]
“Bullshit, he does not!”
“I swear to God, man,” Orlando insisted, leaning forward and planting his elbow resolutely in a puddle of beer. The not-cold damp spread slowly up his arm as Dom leant across Billy to swipe his fingers through the splashes and stick them in his mouth.
“One of the wardrobe girls was fitting him for his sword,” A cheer went up around the table, “and she was simpering about his name and he goes, right, listen to this, he goes,”
Orlando straightened up and pulled his chin into his neck. Looking imposingly around the table, he began in a deep and impressively American accent. “It’s…Danish…my father was…Danish. That’s why…I speak it…”
Orlando calmly ignored Billy’s snort, since the man clearly didn’t recognise a good impression when he saw one.
“Bullshit!” Elijah declared again. “No one speaks Danish outside of Daneland!”
Orlando frowned (Americans knew nothing about Europe, honestly) and opened his mouth to say something when the Danish speaker in question appeared behind Billy (Orlando smirked when Billy jumped a little. That’d teach him to mock other people’s impersonations).
“My father taught me,” Viggo said, sitting and stroking the condensation off his glass, “so I could form bonds with my relatives…in Denmark.” He said this word pointedly, looking at Elijah.
“Denmark?” Elijah said, before Dom shook his head disbelievingly and Billy jumped in.
“Elijah, stop, stop now, while you still look merely drunk and not stupid.”
Elijah glared at him and flicked the ash off his cigarette defiantly in his direction.
“I speak German,” Dom said.
“Do you, Dom?” Billy asked.
“Say something in Danish for us,” Orlando pleaded.
“Very well,” Dom added.
“Hej, jeg hedder Viggo, det var hyggeligt at mødes. Jeg indtale Dansk,” Viggo rattled off.
“Wow,” Elijah breathed.
“I was born in Germany,” Dom explained.
“Were you, Dom?” Billy asked politely.
“What does that mean?” Elijah demanded of Viggo.
“I just said, ‘Hi, my name’s Viggo,” Viggo quirked his mouth and shrugged.
“What did you say after that?” Elijah continued.
“He said, ‘yo’ momma’, Elijah,” Orlando crowed.
“Ich habe in Berlin gerborgen,” Dom mentioned.
“Is that right, Dom?” Billy ducked Elijah’s flying peanuts.
“Dom, your German is rubbish,” Orlando attested, plucking peanuts from his clothes and throwing them back.
“It is not!” Dom protested.
“Dom. You can’t say anything I can’t say having studied German O-level fifteen years ago,” Billy pointed out.
“Do you want more than that?” Dom enquired.
“I speak a little Spanish,” Elijah put in.
“O-level doesn’t teach you anything useful in a foreign language,” Billy said.
“I took French GCSE,” Orlando interjected.
“¿Donde aprendiste castellaño?” Viggo leaned in to Elijah.
“You speak Spanish too?” Billy was surprised.
“J'ai des cheveux et des yeux bruns,” Orlando demonstrated.
“¿Conocés vos algún país sudamericano?” Viggo went on.
“What’s he saying?” Billy nudged Elijah with his foot.
“I don’t know. I only understand about half of it.” Elijah was staring in horror at Viggo.
“J'habite avec mon mère et mon soeur,” Orlando added.
“Maybe he’s speaking Portugese,” Dom suggested.
“I’m speaking Spanish!” Viggo laughed.
“I’m speaking French,” Orlando agreed.
“Ich bin sprechend Deutsch,” Dom said.
“How come you speak Spanish as well?” Elijah wanted to know.
“I lived in Argentina until I was twelve,” Viggo explained.
“I lived in Germany until I was twelve!” Dom exclaimed.
“So why does he speak Spanish better than you speak German?” Orlando snorted.
“I speak German very well!” Dom protested.
“Spanish, Danish and Elvish, all better than you,” Billy said.
“Am besten,” Dom said pointedly.
“Hey Viggo? Yo’ momma!”
Viggo’s head snapped round. “Who said that?”
“Meep,” said Elijah, and pushed back his chair. Dom took the opportunity presented by Viggo launching after him to pour half of both Viggo’s and Elijah’s drinks into his own glass (probably a mistake, Orlando thought, given that Elijah was drinking tequila and Viggo was drinking whiskey).
“Arm yourself, lad,” Billy told Orlando, reaching over to Elijah’s stack of peanuts. Orlando scooped a few from Billy’s hand while Billy started launching them at Viggo. Well, Viggo was the new boy, Orlando thought, and flung his handful too.
*
“Don’t worry, honey, it’ll be fine.”
Orlando flicked his gaze up to the reflection of Julie’s smiling, reassuring face. He looked back at the ominous black razor in her hand. He did not feel reassured.
“You are one crazy mofo,” Elijah told him from the side, where the hobbits had gathered in “support” (read: to mock mercilessly).
“He’s going to look even crazier once Julie’s done with him.”
“Be quiet, Dominic,” Julie scolded. “I’m going to be as gentle as I can.”
Orlando watched Dom and Elijah cackle behind him, clutching each other amid shrieks of “Be gentle with me!” He swallowed and looked back at Julie.
“Ready?” she asked. The door slammed open, making Orlando, who was already feeling quite anxious enough, thankyouverymuch, jump a couple of inches off the seat. Billy charged in.
“Did I miss it?” he panted.
“Just in time, Billy-boy,” Dom said. “Julie’s about to fire it up.”
Julie caught Orlando’s eye as Billy settled beside Elijah. He nodded once and Julie flipped the switch. The humming of the razor was immediately drowned out by cheers from the gallery. Orlando swallowed. This was it. He was about to loose his crowning glory, the mop of curls his aunt, his grandma and his mum said made him look like an angel; soon his curls would be gracing the inside of the dustbin. No longer would he be able to shake water drops from it onto sleeping sunbathers at the beach, no longer would he be able to flick it back casually from his face when catching someone’s eye, no longer would he be able to run his-
The razor made contact just above his left ear. Orlando tightened his fingers on the arm of the chair. A flash of light came from the hobbits, and Orlando looked over to see Billy winding on a disposable camera, beaming happily.
“We have to catch every moment of this,” he explained. “To show the grandkids when you were a punk rocker.”
“I must have been crazy to do this. I can’t believe I thought this would be a good idea,” Orlando babbled. Maybe he could stop now, only a fraction of his head had been shaved, that would grow back soon, right? “Why on earth did I agree to this?”
“I think it was because you were trying to impress a certain she-elf,” Elijah pointed out.
“Crazy,” Orlando said again. Billy stood up and walked closer.
“I want to get a picture from this angle,” he declared. “You can really see the fear.”
“This isn’t fear,” Orlando protested. “I’ll show you fear.”
Dom and Elijah made scared noises, lessened quite dramatically by the howls of laughter.
Julie brushed off some of the slumps of hair still clinging to his shoulder, before moving to the other side. Orlando looked up at Billy, pleading with him.
“Billy. My whole head is vibrating.”
Billy reached out and ran his hand over the newly-shorn side of Orlando’s scalp. His fingertips were rough against the softness of suddenly bare skin. He lifted the camera to his eye.
“Smile, Orlando.”
*
Orlando knew he couldn’t beat Elijah at video games. He knew this because a few weeks into filming, one of the lights on the Council of Elrond set broke and they were given a “fifteen minute break, guys” which everyone knew would last at least an hour. Elijah had bounded up and invited everyone back to his trailer for a game of NASCAR racing. After mocking him for being “such a fucking teenager, Lij” they realised there was nothing better to do and trailed after him. Elijah systematically kicked all their collective arses, even when he gave them a fifteen second head start, at which point he was informed that he needed to get laid and was forbidden from playing. He had sulked in the corner while Dom and Billy (sharing a controller) had thoroughly routed Orlando. No one could figure out how it had happened until it transpired that Orlando had been looking at the wrong car.
Nonetheless, when Orlando arrived at Elijah’s to find him playing video games (“By yourself, Lij? You really need to get fucking laid.”), he had done what he was told, grabbed a controller and shut the fuck up. Because the thing was, Orlando forgot that he could never beat Elijah at video games. Because it had been a while since they’d last played, and Orlando truly believed that in the interim, Elijah had got much, much worse at gaming while he, Orlando, had developed heretofore unseen skills. Of course, none of this was true, since Elijah had obviously been practising (on his own, loser) and Orlando had not touched a game set for three weeks.
Which was why he was perched on the edge of Elijah’s sofa, leaning himself and his controller to the left (kneeing Elijah, who was sat on the floor, in the head), while his car spun wildly to the right, when Billy came through the door.
“Orlando, you fucker, quit kneeing me in the head! I’m still going to kick your ass!” Elijah growled, taking one hand off his controller to shove at Orlando’s leg. Irritatingly enough, his car did not immediately hurtle head first into the nearest wall, flip upside down and burst into flames. It just slowed down a bit.
“Fucking cars,” Orlando said, dropping the controller decisively on Elijah’s head and leaning back. Billy perched on the arm of the sofa.
“Least it’s not in flames this time,” he said diplomatically.
“Hey, Billy,” Elijah greeted, without looking up. “Dom not with you?”
Billy glared at the back of Elijah’s head then, when this provoked no reaction, switched his gaze to Orlando. “Do we look like we’re joined at the bloody hip?”
Orlando studied Billy’s hip. Red t-shirt stripe, white t-shirt stripe, hem, jeans. No Dom. “Not right now. Where is he?”
Billy glared at Orlando. “I don’t know! I did invite him ‘round for a few beers,” Billy reached into his pocket, ignoring Elijah’s protestation of “it’s my flat, you fuckers!” and withdrew his mobile, “because I found some beer from home.”
Orlando pulled the bag open at the top. Guinness. “Billy, you are officially my favourite person in this room.”
“Hey!” Elijah protested.
“As it should be,” Bill beamed, and Orlando smiled back. Orlando sometimes (sometimes!) thought that Billy’s smile rather proved the phrase “smile and the world smiles with you” but he’d never told him, because he was not as dumb as he was pretty, despite frequent contentions to the contrary, and he knew that if he said anything like that, the hobbits (including Billy) would immediately start talking about how lovely it was that a nice girl like Orlando had finally settled down, and then they would argue about which style of wedding dress he would look best in. So he resorted to smiling back when Billy smiled at him.
“Fantastic,” Orlando beamed. Billy picked up his phone and fiddled.
“Of course, I told Dom and this is what he replied.” Billy handed the phone to Orlando, who picked it up and read, ‘is it hienken’. He snorted and tossed the phone back to Billy.
“Exactly,” said Billy, putting it back in his pocket. “Which is why he was uninvited.”
“I never get what’s so great about this beer,” Elijah said, dropping his game controller onto the carpet as his car sailed over the finish line. He pushed himself up onto the sofa beside Orlando.
“Elijah,” Billy began. “Guinness is the greatest beer in the world. Everyone knows it.”
Elijah frowned. “I like Speights,” he offered. Billy closed his eyes at this mortal offence.
“Just for that,” Billy declared, “you can’t have any of my super-special, highly expensive, envy-of-every-right-thinking-man-in-New-Zealand Guinness.”
Orlando nodded emphatically throughout this diatribe, then turned to Billy. “Did you just say super?”
Billy pointed a probably-meant-to-be-warning finger at him. “You watch it, Elf-boy, or you’ll be drinking Speights with Lijah.”
Orlando held up both hands in protest. “No, please Billy, please, anything but that!”
“Oi!” Elijah grunted, but the sound was muffled by the cigarette dangling out of his mouth.
“Hey,” said Billy, “you can’t smoke while we’re in here. That’s just rude.”
“It’s my flat!” Elijah insisted, rather monotonously Orlando thought.
“I don’t care,” Billy declared. “I brought the beer, which you’re not allowed any of, “ (Elijah squeaked), “and we’re guests. Besides, if you smoke up in here, poor Orli might get sick, mightn’t you, Orli?” Billy nudged his knee into Orlando’s arm and Orlando coughed hurriedly.
“Oh, yes, dreadful what smoke does to me.” He coughed pathetically a couple more times.
“So take your Speights and your cigarettes outside, Elijah,” Billy concluded. Orlando grinned on as Elijah gathered his packet and lighter and a can of beer from behind the sofa, grumbling all the while. Billy handed Orlando a Guinness while Elijah juggled everything in his hands as he tried to slide open the French window. Holding the beer can up triumphantly, he turned to yell, “Pride of the South!” back inside, sliding the door into place just as Billy flicked a lid at him. Orlando could hear Elijah cackling from behind the glass as he sat back.
“Budge over,” Billy said, nudging him again. Orlando shifted a half-hearted couple of inches to the left.
“More, you tosser,” Billy complained, “I want to sit.”
“So you move,” Orlando groused, but he slithered over a fraction more. Enough for Billy apparently, who slid only somewhat gracefully off his perch on the arm and ended up squashed at an angle between Orlando and the sofa. Orlando looked down, amused, at the top of Billy’s head as Billy squirmed and yelped against his side.
“Is that better?” he asked, feigning concern.
“Don’t get smart with me, or I’ll drink all the beer myself.”
Orlando snorted disbelievingly, but shifted around until they were both in more comfortable positions (ones that didn’t involve Billy sitting practically in Orlando’s lap).
“What possessed you to play computer games with Elijah?” Billy asked eventually, dropping the bottle opener on the floor next to the bag.
“I thought it was a good idea.” Orlando looked back at the screen and mourned the demise of his favourite blue car. He always played the blue car, even though Dom said Elijah should have it to bring out the colour of his eyes, because Orlando’s favourite colour was blue and, like Billy said, the car did match his contacts.
“Like you think bungee jumping is a good idea?” Billy’s tone suggested exactly what he thought of bungee jumping. He’d delivered that opinion very firmly and decisively when Orlando and Dom had been plotting to do the jump. Orlando seemed to recall the exact words were “no fucking way, you crazy fucking bastards, and stop talking to me about it while I’m drinking or I’ll throw up on you”.
Orlando brightened up as he thought about plunging headfirst towards a shallow stream of water. The rush was amazing, like falling out of a window, but without the all-consuming fear brought on by not being attached to anything.
“You should come with us next time, Bills!” he said enthusiastically, because you don’t get anywhere if you’re not willing to proceed despite terrible odds, such as Billy vomiting his beer onto your new jeans, the ones with the rips in the knees.
“You are not getting me to jump off a bloody bridge,” Billy snorted. “I’ve managed not to jump of any so far and I’ll be perfectly happy if I never do.”
No bungee jumping then. Orlando racked his brains to think of something Billy would be up for. “How about surfing in a storm?”
Billy looked at him, bottle raised halfway to his lips. “What do you mean?”
“Come on, man, it’d be fantastic! The wind, the waves, man they’d be freaking awesome! Big as an Orc!”
“You’d bail every time,” Billy declared, quite unfairly and quite incorrectly. “I’m a way better surfer than you.”
This was only slightly true, and Billy had cheated anyway, since they’d only found out a month after they started surfing that Billy’s balance was helped by many years of Jeet Kune Do training. Orlando ignored the reminder.
“So will you come?”
“Will I come into an enormous electrical conductor in the middle of a high powered storm, thereby risking my life, with a complete nutter in a mohican?” Billy summarised.
Orlando shrugged. When you put it that way…
Billy took another gulp of beer as Elijah pushed the door back open. “Sure, why not?”
*
“Orlando, that is the most amazing shirt I have ever seen.”
Orlando grinned down at his shirt, then grinned up at Billy. “I know, man! They had it in black and I thought, well, I like it a lot, so I’ll probably wear it, like, a lot, right, so I just went ahead and got it in red as well.”
Billy blinked. “You mean there’s another of those monstrosities in your wardrobe?”
Orlando peered at Billy. It was possible, just possible, that what with the lights flashing and the music thumping, he had misinterpreted Billy’s tone before. He was usually pretty good at judging when Billy was being less than earnest. He squinted through the flashing lights at Billy’s face. Flash. Eyebrows raised. Flash. Eyes widened. Flash. Nose wrinkled. Flash. Upper lip curved. Flash. Yep, Billy was being insincere.
“What’s wrong with this shirt?” Orlando demanded.
“It’s the ugliest shirt in the world,” Billy declared.
“It is not! What’s so ugly about it?”
“It’s striped,” Billy pointed out, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world to say, when Orlando had worn striped shirts before with no (or minimal) complaints and he knew beyond a doubt that Billy had striped shirts of his own.
“Stripes do not make it the ugliest shirt in the world.”
“You’re right,” Billy allowed, “The stripes don’t. It’s the ruffles.”
Orlando looked down at his shirt. He placed his thumb and forefinger at the collar, where the ruffles began, and traced them down over the waves. He liked the feeling of the curving hemline under his skin.
“They make me look debonair.”
“They make you look like a ponce,” Dom announced, crashing into the table and slopping drinks all over it, while Billy nodded his agreement.
“Shut up!” Orlando cried, pointing his finger at Dom. “Anyway, your t-shirt has dots on it!”
“Dots are cool,” Dom countered.
“They make you look like a leopard,” Orlando told him, which wasn’t strictly true, because Dom’s dots were concentrated in the centre of his chest. Also they were pink.
“Ah,” Billy sounded like he was beginning to see the light. Orlando’s light. “You mean it’s better to look like an insult to zebras everywhere?”
“Seriously, Orlando,” Dom cut him off before he could protest that if he looked like any stripy animal, he looked like a tiger, as evidenced by his already-bared teeth, “You need some help. Luckily, Billy and I are ready and slightly willing.”
Billy nodded. “Tomorrow, Orlando, we shall find you a dress sense.”
Orlando snorted. It probably wouldn’t be too bad. “Alright. But you tossers are buying.”
The next day found Orlando, who was nursing a headache the size of the south island, hiding behind his favourite pair of rose-coloured glasses from the ruthless outfitting of his new fashion team (which actually consisted of just Billy, Dom having begged off with the claim that he would never have been drunk enough to agree to take on such a hopeless case as Orlando). Billy was flipping through racks and racks of the most boring shirts known to man. Orlando stifled a yawn behind his hand.
“Don’t you yawn at me, young man,” Billy scolded.
“These are all boring, Billy,” Orlando complained.
“I think boring is what you need right now.”
Orlando shifted moodily and contemplated the quickest exit route. He hummed ‘The Great Escape’ under his breath.
“Stop plotting your getaway,” Billy warned him.
“I can’t help it, man, I’m going out of my mind. Can we at least go to a shop I like?”
“Okay,” Billy conceded, “but only because these shirts are rubbish.”
Orlando was filled with a sense of smugness as he led Billy out of the shop and into the little side street where the charity shops were homed.
“You shop here, Orlando?” Billy appeared to be shocked, which ridiculously implied that Billy had never been into a charity shop in his life.
“What’s so weird about that?” Orlando demanded. “I’m not going to pay vast amounts of money for clothes that fall apart soon as look at them. Here you pay peanuts for clothes you know are hard-wearing because they’ve already been worn by someone else for long enough for that someone to get fed up of them.”
Billy’s eyes were glazed. Clearly he was bowled over by Orlando’s impressive logic. “Come on,” he said, dragging Billy by the elbow in to the nearest Marie Curie Cancer Care.
Billy seemed to recover a bit inside, at least enough to mutter under his breath that some of Orlando’s fashion choices were indeed explained by the fact that they’d already been rejected by another, sane person. Orlando magnanimously chose not to reply to that remark and continued flipping through the men’s rack. He’d accidentally looked through the women’s rack once and did find a nice, bold-patterned floral shirt, but the old lady in the shop had looked at him weirdly when he went to try it on, so he had slunk out of there blushing without buying the damn thing.
Orlando was furtively sneaking glances over to the women’s rack to see if the shirt was still there when Billy went still beside him. He pulled his attention back.
“Found something?”
Billy reached into the row of shirts and pulled one out. Orlando looked at it, then at Billy’s face. Billy was in raptures.
“It’s probably too small for me,” he said carefully, “but why don’t you try it on?”
Billy looked up at Orlando, clutching the shirt to his chest. “You think so?”
“Yeah, it’d suit you,” Orlando encouraged, gesturing to the dressing room (or curtain across the corner of the shop in this case).
Billy looked longingly over at the corner, then back at Orlando. “But we’re supposed to be finding things for you,” he said, and Orlando almost grinned at the look on his face. Instead, he reached into the clothes rack and pulled out a white embroidered shirt.
“I was about to try this one on anyway. Why don’t we try them on together?”
Billy was over there like a shot. There was only one dressing room, but it was large enough to encompass the girth of the usual clientele, so Billy and Orlando fitted in together easily, ignoring the slightly horrified look of the lady behind the counter. Orlando turned away from Billy as he twisted his t-shirt of his head. He could feel the material of Billy’s chosen shirt brush up his back as Billy pulled it on. He finished buttoning his own shirt and tugged a couple of times on the sleeves. With the dogged determination only found in inanimate objects, they slid resolutely back up.
“Mine’s a little small,” he said. “Maybe I’ll get it for Dom though, he might like it.”
Orlando turned and promptly realised Billy hadn’t been paying the slightest bit of attention to him. Billy was gazing happily into the tiny mirror. Sometimes he would smooth his hands over the hem of the shirt, sometimes he would twist slightly, but never too far in case he lost sight of the shirt, and always he smiled soppily as if he’d never known true love until this moment. Orlando broke into a smile at the sight.
“Well?” Billy asked, never breaking eye contact with his reflection, “What do you think?”
Orlando looked over Billy’s shoulder at the shirt. It was covered in broad vertical stripes of red and blue-grey with wide double-cuffs. Two pockets had been cut from the same material and placed diagonally over the breast on either side of a wide section of horizontal stripes where the shirt buttoned. It was the ugliest shirt Orlando had ever seen. He looked at Billy and beamed.
“I love it.”
*
“I have sand in my arse crack.”
Orlando thought long and hard about how to respond to that. He cocked his head to the left. He scratched his ear. He huffed out a sigh. Eventually, he replied, “I don’t really care.”
“I know you don’t,” Billy agreed. “I just thought I’d let you know. In the interests of full disclosure.”
Orlando didn’t answer, but stared out to sea.
“I thought wearing jeans would curtail the effect,” Billy continued. “But it seems to have snuck in over the top.”
“Sand is tricksy like that,” Orlando agreed.
“It doesn’t seem to be affecting you like that. How is that fair?”
Orlando wriggled his toes in the warm sand. The hot scratchy substance rubbed against the sensitive skin where his sandals had been chafing and lodged resolutely and determinedly in between the littler toes, to be found and brushed out a week later onto Elijah’s couch. “I do have sand in my knickers. But I’m not squirming about like you so it doesn’t bother me as much.”
“I can’t stop moving.” Billy fidgeted again. Orlando lay back and the sand in his pants shifted uncomfortably and settled.
“I knew you liked it, kinky hobbit. You love the feeling of rough sand rubbing up against your arsehole. I bet you shove handfuls of the stuff down your knickers every night.” Orlando closed his eyes against the brightness of the light, and as such, missed Billy scooping up a double handful of sand and dropping it right in the middle of Orlando’s chest. Orlando spluttered, spitting out stray grains of sand which had blown, jumped and been deliberately shaken into his mouth. He shielded his eyes and stared up at Billy’s unrepentant face.
“Oh, that’s it,” he growled, and leapt at Billy, not a paltry feat, given that he had previously been lying prone on his back. The move actually consisted of Orlando rolling onto his side and propelling his body towards Billy’s by means of a series of full body flops. Billy, having declined to get to his feet, was shuffling sideways on his elbows and feet, bum hanging down and dragging in the sand.
“Gnargh!” Billy said eloquently, as Orlando managed to fling his arms around Billy’s waist and drag Billy towards him. Billy flailed and thrashed and writhed until, somehow, Orlando found himself squashed beneath a struggling hobbit, which was not exactly where he had planned to be. Keeping his grip tight around Billy’s waist, he planted his feet in the sand (which didn’t work very well, due to the slippery nature of sand) and pushed up, twisting his hips and torso until they were both on their sides and Orlando could hook a leg over Billy’s to stop them kicking.
“And the Elf wins again, to no one’s very great surprise!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “What do you say to that, Mr. Boyd?”
“I have sand in my eye,” Billy informed him, “and it hurts quite a lot.”
“This is why hobbits never win any wars,” Orlando explained to him. “Do you think an Elf would stop fighting just because of a bit of sand in his eye?” He released his legs from around Billy’s thighs and rolled him over so they were facing each other.
“Hobbits don’t get into wars,” Billy told him, rubbing his fist into his eye like a baby waking up. “They’re peaceful creatures, unlike the brutish Elves.”
Orlando tugged Billy’s hand away from his eye and pulled the lower lid down. Billy’s eyeball rolled up and his top lid flickered a couple of times. Orlando peered closer.
“Elves are not brutish,” he said distractedly. “They have grace and wisdom. There’s nothing in there, you big baby.”
Billy blinked a couple more times. “Thanks.”
Orlando smiled down at him. There was sand clinging to his cheek. Orlando brushed it away and leant down. He pressed his lips briefly against Billy’s.
“Don’t worry. The graceful and wise Elf will protect the little hobbit from dangerous sand.”
Billy smirked up at him. “I’m not a bloody damsel in distress,” he protested.
Orlando grinned and kissed him again, before rolling back over onto his back. “Then why do you always wear a skirt?”
Part Two